Psychological Science in the Courtroom - Consensus and Controversy

One of the difficulties that all psychiatrists encounter when they see patients for less than fifty minutes is how to be empathic while on the run. Nowadays the psychiatrist, often behind schedule, has but a Twenty Minute Hour to evaluate a patient’s level of functioning and current symptoms and side effects; to judge their responsiveness to medication; to do some teaching about medication and/or disease management; and finally to complete the chart.
Prime Time gives pointers from an experienced clinician on how to deal more effectively and efficiently within time constraints. It is designed to assist psychiatrists with medication and evaluation, and to allow for psychotherapy in addition to the requisite psychopharmacology. The primer provides a number of short cuts and clinical maneuvers in initiating and ending sessions that can help promote positive transference, assist effective flow of information, and aid in closing out the session without falling behind schedule.

Organizing a vast body of scientific literature, this indispensable book presents the state of the art in understanding borderline personality disorder (BPD) and distills key treatment principles that therapists need to know. Rather than advocating a particular approach, Joel Paris examines a range of therapies and identifies the core ingredients of effective intervention. He offers specific guidance for meeting the needs of this challenging population, including ways to improve diagnosis, promote emotion regulation and impulse control, maintain appropriate therapeutic boundaries, and deal with suicidality and other crises. Highly readable, practical, and humane, the book also explains the latest thinking on the causes of BPD and how it develops.

Vancouver artist Sandra Yuen MacKay has an abnormality of the brain - a disease called schizophrenia. As she says, "my life is schizophrenic because I have schizophrenia. It will always be there". Much of her life has been a struggle to cope with the symptoms of her disease and the side effects of the medications required to keep those symptoms in check. Early in her life, Sandra started to exhibit the typical symptoms of this disease which came as a surprise to her unsuspecting family. Her book chronicles her struggles, hospitalizations, encounters with professionals, return to school, eventual marriage, and success as an artist, writer and advocate. "Remarkably compelling...the book takes on a life if its own...a gripping narrative" Library Journal "There are precious few people who have experienced psychosis and can convey it accurately, clearly,and concisely. Sandra MacKay's story is an important one for all of us in the mental health field --doctors, patients, and their families. It is imperative that we take in the lessons she is imparting to us all, on how to manage, and in many ways, triumph, over chronic mental illness." Julie Holland, MD author, Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych ER., New York city

Recommended by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in the US and The Mood Disorders Society of Canada, Sandra is the winner of the BC Courage to Come Back Award for Mental Health in 2012